Merde! You fool.

For several months since they moved in, I have greeted our new neighbours with a Bonjour here and an au revoir there. I think I even ventured to comment on the weather in my clumsy school boy french.I have always kept it light and happy, wanting them to feel welcome and part of the little community that we have here. You know the sort. We exchange Christmas cards, vow to see more of each other during the year and then don't. Anyway our neighbours have always smiled at me, and replied in English. They wave when ever they see us out and about, and were very understanding when Lilly the Collie decided to try out their front lawn as a toilet. Well they smiled and waved from their window as I went about the business of collecting Lilly's offering. So I was a bit disappointed as you can imagine when a few days ago during an increasingly rare conversation with Mrs BW, I explained to her how nice I thought our French neighbours were, only for Mrs BW to look at me with that quizzical, slightly patronising look that she has, and reply, "You mean the Polish ones?"  

I am going (not so) quietly insane

As I write our house vibrates to a cacophony of sound. I of course have radio 4 on. A perfectly acceptable background noise, an intelligent sort of sound that sooths and cools the furrowed brow. (Or is it troubled?) From the bathroom there comes the idiot ramblings of some youthful, intellectually challenged and no doubt spotty DJ, playing rubbish music, which is being nicely distorted on the fledglings small and very portable radio. The one that if it is not irritating me from the bathroom, has been left strategically placed beneath a pile of dirty clothing in the middle of his bedroom, so that I can step on it when I go in to say good night to him. From the spare room, that now does duty as the TV room our daughter is watching and listening to something on the tele. She is obviously going deaf. It is very loud. I can barely hear the Archers. From downstairs I can hear the low rumblings of the washing machine. Mrs BW has left the utility room door open again!

I turn for comfort to my e-mails. Amazon has sent me one. It tells me that I can pre-order the next and (thank f**k for it) the last Harry Potter book. I decide to go and have a quiet lie down. I go into the bedroom, shut the door, turn off the light and lie on the bed. The room is bathed in the unsubtle glow from our next-door neighbours security light. Somewhere in the distance I hear the sound of hooves racing across the grassy steppes. Help me. Please…………………………….